Backup my VC

[Phil_Ax]

Hi, we just finish migrating almost all our physical infrastucture into a virtual infrastucture. We now have 2 ESX servers + another server that has a physical VC. My question is: I want to backup my VC in case that something happens. I know that if it crashes, the ESX will continue to function properly for 15 days(licenses) and that I could just reinstall the VC from scratch but since I have other applications on this server like EVA command view, Backup Exec, etc...I want a way that will be faster.

Since this is a new server, I was thinking of just cloning the VC with Norton Ghost. Is that a good solution?

Thanks for your help

[weinstein5]

That is a good soluiton - also another option people have done is P2V the VC server and leave the new VM powered off -

[riker82]

Instead of ghost, use Back Exec System Recovery that allow you be hardware indipendent for restore operation

[Phil_Ax]

Thanks for your quick suggestions, If a go with Back Exec System Recovery do I have to go with the Manager edition for it to support my Windows 2003 server? And if I go with Ghost (which might be least expensive) which version should I take so it can be compatible with Windows 2003 with a local SCSI drive?

Thanks again I really appreciate it.

[riker82]

I think you can use this one

We use this one that is more expensive but allow you to create image "vmware" compatible in order to run converter and import those images in your virtual infrastructure

[vmroyale]

Also, don't forget to backup the VC database.

[riker82]

I implied that you are using sql express DB, however vmroyale has right.

Probably it's more important backup your database and then your vc server